This was the first glimpse, the first sniff, the first window into the Aztecs’ big, lanky, well-traveled basketball future.

What about Aguek Arop, the forward born in Sudan with the 7-foot wingspan and 36-inch vertical leap? What about Nathan Mensah, the 6-10 forward from Ghana with an even bigger wingspan and reputation as a rebound-inhaling shot eraser?

When the Aztecs opened the season Tuesday with a 76-60 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff, the questions easily outpaced the answers.

For Arop and Mensah, the debut was careful. Limited. Measured.

“It’s different when the lights are on,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said of Arop, who’s nursing a hip, and Mensah, who missed four weeks with an injury to a finger on his shooting hand. “The task now is, this is the time they have to get to work. Now that they’re healthy, we need to get them up to speed.”

Arkansas-Pine Bluff represented the curtain-pulling on the first grand experiment under second-year coach Brian Dutcher. For a program that has suited up just one player outside of North America — Mehdi Cheriet of France, a bit player from 2009-11 — along comes Sudan and Ghana … and Ghana and Sudan.

In addition to Arop and Mensah, another tall and talented freshman from Ghana named Joel Mensah, no relation to Nathan, awaits. So does Ed Chang, who emigrated from Sudan as a toddler and grew up in Omaha, Neb., as did Arop.

Got it? No worries. We understand. This is going to take time.

Start here: All forwards. All freshmen. All with interesting passports and equally interesting ceilings.

“Just how hard they play,” said senior guard Devin Watson, who scored a game-high 20 points, when asked about the duo. “You saw it tonight. They get after it.”

The first minutes for Arop and Nathan Mensah, the two expected to make the biggest impact soonest, hardly constituted a highlight reel. They split nine minutes between them in the first half. Arop pulled down a couple of rebounds. Mensah missed a short baseline jumper from an odd angle behind the basket.

What mattered more: Their uniforms hung off Division I-ready bodies, not those fragile first-year frames apt to bend in the big-game wind. They ran the floor well. They didn’t look out of place.

At most turns, they looked like they belonged — especially for guys dipping toes in next-level waters for the first time.

When 6-11 Pine Bluff junior Isaac Bassey tried to push and shove Mensah as they jostled for position on an inbounds play, the newcomer held his ground. He pushed back. Mensah swatted a shot with a little more than 10 minutes left, sparking the biggest set of oohs and aahs of the night from the Viejas Arena crowd.

The Aztecs are hunting for a wide, capable body to fill the kind of role Skylar Spencer and Valentine Izundu did in the past. There’s a job opening for a lane clogger, a shot-changer, a nuisance with an attitude.

“I think he’ll catch up right away,” Dutcher said of Mensah, compared to those big bodies from the Aztecs’ past. “He’s going to be a big-time shot blocker.”

Arop finished with two rebounds in nine minutes. Mensah grabbed three rebounds, hit two of his four free throws and missed a pair of shots from the field. When Joel Mensah hit the court, he appeared a little less polished and a half a step slow compared to the others, while firing long on a pair of jumpers.

Again, though, it’s early … for all of them. A win against Pine Bluff, a team they’ve beaten by an average of 34 points in the past hardly constitutes final exams for anyone.

Dutcher, though, stressed that blending in and finding a way to be a cog among the veterans will be the truest test.

“The task is, the freshmen can’t slow that (core) group down,” Dutcher said. “I’ve got to get all the freshmen up to that speed. … I need that eight days to get them ready for that next game.”

That’s Nov. 14, against Texas Southern.

Who will turn into immediate contributors, with Duke waiting at the Maui Invitational Nov. 19? Who knows? This picture, big and tall and fresh, is only starting to take shape.

Fitting, really, that all those debuts came on election night.

For this group, the results remain far from in.

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